When an Edinburgh based online retailer was looking for photographers to photograph their range of products, they approached Blink Imaging based on our experience in product photography.
At first glance, the brief was quire simple; to photograph a range of cosmetic products and some silverware for selling online. They needed some nice clean images against a white background, which is pretty much the standard for online. To the untrained eye, it might seem like a very simple shoot but as commercial photographers with a great deal of experience in photographing products, we could instantly see some of the challenges.
Even with a simple shot we spend a lot of time getting a composition that works well.
Silverware, in particular is very difficult product to photograph well, as it reflects everything around it; in fact pretty much 360 degrees, above, below, to the right and left. When this happens, rather than see the product and the quality of the silverware, all you can see is what it’s reflecting, which in a studio environment, is usually lots of black lines coming from things like tripods and lighting stands.
Although we used the same set up for all the silverware, each one selected the light differently, so the lighting and camera position had to be subtly adjusted each time.
The only way to solve this is to photograph the product in a light tent, which basically surrounds the product so the only thing it reflects is the white light coming from the tent. Even this created problems, as the silverware was still reflecting the black circle of the lens where it was poking through the tent. Using a combination of a specialist shift tilt lens which allows you to change the perspective and height of the camera, we were able to find just the right sweet spot where all you could see was the silverware itself. We left in some subtle reflections so you could still see its shape.
This cosmetics product was also challenging to photograph due to it’s highly reflective top.
The cosmetics products also presented similar challenges for the photography, as they had highly reflective silver tops. As they were a different size to the silverware, they we had to start afresh to find the right angle that worked. To some that might appear time consuming and frustrating but to us it’s what you need to do to create the perfect shot.